At this point everyone knows that Cyberpunk’s had an infamously disastrous launch. It’s taken CDPR nearly 3 years of updates (and probably a lot of help repairing the IP’s reputation with the anime) to even get it in the state it should’ve been in the first place. How it was released in 2020 wasn’t acceptable, but I decided to replay it fully with the new 2.0 update and DLC out and credit where it’s due, they did put a lot of work into correcting its faults. There’s still some jank here and there and Night City is still not quite the liveliest cityscape it was promised to be, but the complete revamp of its systems along with improvements on a technical level finally puts it in a state where I’d call it a pretty great game. Especially now that what Cyberpunk does well the most (its story, quests, and character detail/animations) can be more appreciated without the endless bugs and crashes every few moments

That goes for the base game but of course there’s also Cyberpunk’s new expansion Phantom Liberty. The Witcher 3 set an immense standard with Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, both of which are among the best DLC there is in my opinion. I’m still more a fan of TW3 in general so personally would rank those a bit higher, but PL continues their streak of high quality expansions and is a really strong addition to the game. Telling a different but no less engrossing spy story that directly ties with V’s struggle to survive in the main game, with expectedly great performances throughout (including Idris Elba) and more difficult choices than before with two different ending paths

The new area Dogtown slots seamlessly into Night City’s Pacifica district. It’s not as sprawling compared to say TW3’s Toussaint, but it’s dense and very detailed with most of the content there being a step up from the main game. Along with the story quests there are 9 new side gigs that are more fleshed out than the usual filler ones, and with the new gear and 2.0 abilities in combat it’s much more fun to actually play. And the music is still great, especially that ending song by Dawid Podsiadło. Fantastic stuff and was perfect with the credits sequence

So overall with the improvements since launch and DLC, Cyberpunk’s been rough to start but in a good place now. l’m actually looking forward to what they’ll do next with Orion some day, though with CDPR’s switch from REDengine to UE5 here’s hoping they won’t have more development issues with that one